Give taxpayers a break. Literally.On the heels of President Bush’s announcement this past week that the tax rebate checks for millions of Americans is in the mail, here at home in Alabama some of those same taxpayers are learning that the state will tax the tax rebate.
A bill to exempt the checks from state income tax is stalled in the Legislature with just six days left in the session, and other bills stalled ahead of it. It still has hurdles to make in both the House and the Senate before passage, and they will be uphill battles with only a half dozen days for lawmakers to end their feuding and take definitive action.
It is ironic that what is meant to be an economic stimulus – a bit of financial relief for taxpayers hit hard by a faltering economy – could end up being taxed in the end. But that’s Alabama, and politics in these parts aren’t traditionally guided by common sense.
For one of the poorer states in the nation, it seems that lawmakers could find a way to move the exemption through and actually give some relief to their constituency.
And that’s exactly what we urge Alabama legislators to do. Voters put them in office to do a job for them. It’s time they did it.
